The United Kingdom’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has ordered Binance to stop all regulated activities in Britain and imposed stringent requirements in a stinging rebuke of one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.
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According to London-based Financial Times, the intervention by the FCA in recent days has been one of the most significant moves any global regulator has made against Binance, a sprawling digital asset firm with subsidiaries around the world.
The exchange has until Wednesday to confirm it has complied with the watchdog’s demands.
The report said the intervention was a sign of how regulators were cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry over concerns relating to its potential role in illicit activities such as money laundering and fraud, and over often weak consumer protection.
In Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in February directed banks and other financial institutions to close any accounts dealing in cryptocurrency or facilitating payment for cryptocurrency exchange. Binance was also affected then.
The CBN had then stated that it was investigating the company’s bank accounts with the intention of blocking those with suspicious transactions and fraud.
But the FCA at the weekend issued a consumer warning against both the Cayman Islands-registered Binance Holdings Company and Binance Markets Limited, a London-based affiliate that is controlled by Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao and is overseen by the UK regulator.
“Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK,” the FCA said, adding: “No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct a regulated activity in the UK.”
The group did not immediately respond to an FT request for comment, but has previously said it “takes its compliance obligations very seriously, and is committed to following local regulatory requirements wherever we operate.”
Binance Markets Limited is not approved under the FCA’s cryptocurrency registration regime, which is required for UK groups offering digital asset services.
The entity had applied to become a registered cryptocurrency company with the regulator, but pulled that application last month according to two people familiar with the situation. The watchdog confirmed the application had been dropped “following intensive engagement from the FCA”.
The FCA’s focus in deciding whether or not to approve such applications is based on a review of controls and practices to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Binance is one of the most important operators in the fast-emerging crypto market, offering a wide range of services to customers around the world, including trading in dozens of digital coins, futures, options, stock tokens, as well as savings accounts and lending.
It recorded crypto trading volumes equivalent to $1.5 trillion last month, according to data from TheBlockCrypto.
As part of the FCA’s actions, the regulator ordered Binance to display by next Wednesday on its website that, “Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK.”
Binance Markets Limited also must “secure and preserve all records and/or information . . . relating to all UK consumers from its systems” and halt any advertising and financial promotions.
London-based Binance Markets Limited had permission from the FCA to provide consumers with investment services in traditional currencies, something Binance achieved by purchasing a financial company that was already registered with the regulator. The transaction was approved by the FCA last June, according to public documents.
The FCA’s decision came after Japan’s Financial Services Agency warned last week that Binance was conducting unauthorised trade in cryptocurrencies with Japanese citizens. It is the second time the FSA has warned about Binance after publishing an identical notice in 2018.
Germany’s financial watchdog warned investors in April that Binance had probably violated securities rules over its launch of trading in stock tokens, something the exchange tried unsuccessfully to appeal against.
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